Actually, she was mere months from her twenty-sixth birthday. Then, just as abruptly as he had, she asked, “How old are you, Jones?”
He clearly hadn’t expected the rapid-fire retort. Nevertheless, he told her readily enough, “Thirty-two. I have ten years in at the Bureau. Seniority, one might say.” And before she had a chance to remind him that seniority was earned by more than just years, he continued coolly, “Look, Logan, I know all about you, all right? Hell, it’s been hammered home to every agent here in Portland how fast and furious the homegrown Girl Wonder rose through the ranks at Quantico. But I, for one, suspect a lot of that was due to Daddy Logan’s influence, both in Portland and elsewhere. Must be nice having an old man worth millions pulling strings for you. Me, I wouldn’t know. I earned my position the old-fashioned way—by working hard and fighting tooth and nail for it.”
Now Bridget’s eyebrows really shot up. The animosity she had sensed simmering just beneath his surface had boiled right up from under the lid, burning her with hisses and steam. This time she didn’t battle anything except Jones when she replied. “My father had nothing to do with my progress,” she snapped. “I earned my position, too, Agent Jones. By working my ass off, fighting a hell of a lot harder than you, and by making sacrifices you couldn’t begin to understand. Don’t you dare suggest otherwise. If anybody gets handed anything in this business, it’s those of you who have a Y chromosome. We women get handed jack. We have to work twice as hard as any of you guys to get half as much.”
He set his jaw tightly at her outburst, but he said nothing more in response. Which was just as well. Bridget’s animosity wasn’t exactly cooling at the moment, and she hated losing control almost as much as she hated not being taken seriously. Jones cranked the key in the ignition then, turning his gaze forward. He said not another word for the rest of the ride, and that was just fine with Bridget. She wanted to be rid of the SOB as soon as possible. And until then, she wanted to forget he existed at all.
The Portland field office of the FBI was located in the Crown Plaza Building, a boxy white building downtown that housed a number of other organizations and businesses. The city itself was just as Bridget had seen it the last time she had spent more than a couple of days at home about seventeen months ago. When she’d come home for Peter and Katie’s reception, she’d barely seen anything outside the Logan home. The only difference now was that when she’d been home two Christmases ago, for all of five days, a delicate whisper of snow had been falling—a fairly rare occurrence for the city. Now, a fine gauze of rain misted over the entire downtown, the product of fat slate clouds overhead. In spite of that, a strange warmth spread through her. Even though, under other circumstances, she might have been in Vienna at the moment, it really did feel kind of nice to be home.
Until she remembered her dour driver. Once she got rid of Agent Jones, she amended, then it would feel kind of nice to be home.
He parked the car on a lower level of the parking garage and, again without a word, unfolded his big frame from behind the wheel and began walking toward the elevators before Bridget’s feet even touched the ground. Somehow she refrained from rolling her eyes heavenward.
Jerk, she thought.
But she hastened her stride to catch up with him. After all, she’d never been inside the Portland office. And since 9/11, a lot of new security checks had been put into place. She’d have to follow Jones’s lead if she wanted to make this as simple and as fast as she could. So she doubled her pace, taking two steps for every one of his, so large was his stride with those long, long legs. And she did her best to keep breathing at her regular rate as she hustled along, because the last thing she needed to be doing was panting after this man, even if it was only because she was winded.
They rode in silence up to the fourth floor, then he led her down a hall to the field office and entered ahead of her. But he held the door open for her once he passed through it, something that frankly surprised her. Okay, so he had some latent sense of courtesy, she conceded grudgingly. That didn’t make up for the way he had verbally assailed her in the car.
A secretary dressed in efficient gray snapped to attention at their appearance, and she greeted Agent Jones informally before saying, “He’s expecting you. Go on in.”
Bridget was surprised when Jones did exactly as the receptionist instructed. Okay, so he could take orders from women and not be put off by his inferiors, she further conceded, though still grudgingly. Clearly, it was just something about Bridget herself who put the guy off.
Her father’s money and influence, she recalled, neither of which had she ever taken advantage as an adult. She’d earned academic scholarships to put herself through college, and had worked both on- and off-campus to pay for her living expenses. And although her new role would have her posing as a trophy wife, a lifestyle with which she should have been familiar enough, Bridget had never really been into the physical trappings of the Logan wealth. Yes, she’d grown up in a big, beautiful home in one of Portland’s most desirable neighborhoods. Yes, she’d benefited from private schools and extracurricular activities a lot of families couldn’t afford. But not once had she taken any of them for granted. And as soon as she’d been old enough to start making her own way in the world, she had.
Not that she’d bother to tell any of that to Jones. Within minutes, the guy would be out of her life for good. And good riddance to him, too.
For now, though, she followed him into the next room and found one that looked a lot like the offices of other Bureau heads she’d seen, painted an institutional off-white and furnished with institutional gray Berber carpeting, fake wood shelves, a fake wood desk and fake leather chairs. The man who stood behind that desk was very real, however, looking as much like a federal agent as Jones didn’t. Average height, average weight, middle age, medium-brown hair and eyes. Average, middle and medium everything else, too.
“Agent Logan,” the man said as he stood. “Welcome back to Portland. I’m Steve Pennington. Special Agent in Charge.”
“Agent Pennington,” Bridget said as she extended her hand.
He shook it once, confidently, professionally, then silently motioned that she should seat herself in one of the two chairs opposite his desk. She did, and was surprised that Agent Jones took the other one. That didn’t bode well for his leaving, which was the one activity she would very much have liked to see him indulge in.
“I’m sure you’re wondering,” Agent Pennington continued, “why you were pulled out of Vienna to return home.”
“It’s crossed my mind,” Bridget told him. “I’m assuming, because of the other information I was given about clinical infertility, that it’s because of my family’s involvement with Children’s Connection.”
“It is,” Pennington said. “You probably already know about some of the problems that have been plaguing the organization for the past several months.”
She nodded. “When I’ve spoken with my family, they’ve mentioned from time to time some of the, uh, setbacks the organization has experienced over the past year, yes,” she said. “I know there was an attempted kidnapping of an infant adopted by one of their clients—mostly because my brother David was involved and will soon be that child’s father,” she added with a smile, still feeling strangely warm and fuzzy about the prospect of becoming an aunt so many times over so quickly. “And I know about a successful kidnapping of another infant that’s still under investigation.”
“Yes, it is,” Pennington said. “What’s not been made public, though, is that we have reason to believe both the attempted and successful kidnappings may be linked to some other kidnappings that have occurred in the city over the past year.”
“I didn’t know about the possible connection,” she told Pennington. But she said nothing more, because she could tell by his expression that he wasn’t finished yet.
“And what’s also not been made public,” he continued, “is that there was a mix-up not long ago at the Children’s Connection clinic with some, uh, sperm,” he concluded in a matter-of-fact voice, even though that last wasn’t a word Bridget normally heard spoken in